About a month ago I was loitering around the first floor of Amos' Southend waiting for Fred Eaglesmith to take the stage - - now I'm not sure how many wrong turns you have to make out of Canada to end up in Charlotte, North Carolina, but I'm pretty sure it's at least one more than NASCAR would sanction - - when I was afflicted with a case of serendipity. I was checking out the merchandise table and talking to an Al Kunz groupie about Rockzillaworld, when a man behind her caught my attention and said he'd have to get me one of his CDs. Being the free music whore that I am, I said I'd love to have one, and if he had some paper I'd give him my address. No need, he replied, and picked a CD up off the merchandise table and handed it to me. Kind of awkward having my local music ignorance on full display like that, but serendipity isn't always a painless process. And if that's what it takes to get turned on to a musical talent like Trip Rogers, then consider me a masochist. "Coffeehouse Combat Guitar" is how Trip describes his music, which is a much more euphemistic way of saying clever, emotional lyrics coupled with incendiary musicianship. Sounding like the closest thing to Steve Goodman that I've heard since, maybe, Chuck Brodsky, Trip Rogers adds yet another layer to the ever increasing complexity of the Charlotte music scene. His debut CD, Mainline, is turgid with intelligent lyrics that don't lack for humor or Southern sensibility and the best guitar lines you're likely to hear this side of Gary Rossington. "Hero," the opening track on the disc, goes well beyond the usual examples and well into the realm of the unsung. People you might see everyday and think nothing of could very well be an Achilles behind closed doors. Damn, with a song like this there's always the danger of thought and reassessment. "She lost two of her front teeth two boyfriends ago She's raising the baby daughter of her seventeen-year-old Her latest live-in quit his job, said the boss man was a jerk So she's working double shifts at the Circle K 'cause someone's got to work If you catch her on her day off, she'll clean your house for cash But no one sees a hero, just worn out trailer trash" "Attitude" is a wonderful reminder that sometimes it's the intangibles that make a person who they are much more than any of the superficial accoutrements. A little something for the trial-by-brand-name generation to keep in mind. "When I was a kid there was a guy in our neighborhood Drove a primered El Camino with a blower stickin' through the hood He had Love and Hate tattooed across the knuckles of his hands And I thought he was cool 'cause he played in a Southern rock band They said he couldn't keep a woman or a job He was just too crude Well if he didn't have anything else He had attitude" If Acoustic Alchemy had been from the South, they might have come up with an instrumental like "2 Stroke Smoke." The damn thing's so catchy you'll be whistling it in your sleep. Consider yourself warned. Then there's the song that I think should be nominated for the official anthem of Charlotte, North Carolina: "New Barbarians." Trip Rogers wrote this from a personal experience - - I only wish he would've gotten the guy's name - - and he captures perfectly the type of soulless yuppie drone that has become the unofficial symbol of the Queen City. If this song doesn't have you laughing from beginning to end, then you're probably the kind of person he's singing about. "He's got a Japanese imitation Of a German luxury car He's got a shoulder strap on his briefcase He's a corporate rising star He gets attaboys from the Big Guy For keeping his cubicle clean And his frat brothers send him dirty jokes On the company's fax machine He's one of the new barbarians One of the new elite He's just waiting for all of us peasants To get on down and kiss his feet He'll make sweeter ashes He'll make finer dust 'Cause he's one of the new barbarians And he's a cut above the rest of us" Trip Rogers is the kind of artist that makes me think the Charlotte music scene is going to be one to contend with in the very near future. So get your copy of Mainline and be waiting on shore when that next wave moves through.